Since our return to the States, we've done our best to share our passion for this ministry and give people a glimpse of what captivated us while there and how they too can help. Regardless of our success or failure with such attempts, what I'm posting today is a PERFECT depiction of what it's all about!!!
Read below and see a story that is so beautifully a telling of the work God is doing through The Forsaken Children and the Onesimus Ministry. This story brings a smile to my face, as Mr. McGoo and I are both very fond of Yohannes and it thrills us that not only does he now know our Lord and Savior, but he is also going back to his family. At the same time this testimony encourages me for the work of this ministry and how blessed I am to be a part of it. BEAUTIFUL what God can do!
The following blog post is from The Forsaken Children's Blog:
Yohannes’s Lie
July 28, 2010Yohannes at Halfway Home |
Nega always says a street child’s story is like an onion. Everyday you peel back a layer until you come to the truth.
If living on the streets sounds unappealing to you, imagine yourself as a 13 year-old with not restrictions whatsoever – that freedom is what the streets are for many children and that is what many street children love, become addicted to, and struggle to leave behind.Hunger probably lead Yohannes along with about 13 of his closest friends to start coming to Children’s Home Ethiopia’s Drop-In Center in 2009. As his belly was filled, his eyes and ears started to open and see what he was missing on his beloved streets – the love and protection of caring adults, of a family. Nega, Bisrat, Nesegnet, Ribika, and Fitela taught him, fed him, clothed him, listened to him, and even cared for him when he was near death due to illness.
Yohannes’s deadened heart began to feel again. when he went to the streets each evening the rush of street life began to pale in comparison to the rush of being unconditionally loved.
The time came when Yohannes had a choice to leave the streets and enter Children’s Home Ethiopia’s Halfway Home. He chose the Halfway Home. Alemayu and Abazu, House Parents, dedicated themselves to Yohannes; sharing their lives, love for Jesus, church family, and home with him. Could he trust this love? Almost as a test and probably due to an ache for the freedom of the streets, Yohannes ran away from home.
The intensity of parental love is often hard for a former street child to fully embrace, not knowing if he or she can truly trust that the love is genuine, unconditional, or that it will last.Gone for close to a week, Yohannes came back to the Drop-In Center after Nega found him on the streets. He reluctantly went back to the Halfway Home. A week passed, then a month, then several months, and in August Yohannes will have been in the Halfway Home for a year.
Yohannes with his Halfway Home brothers and sister
In June Yohannes became my spiritual brother when he accepted Jesus as his Savior.
Yohannes’s progression from coming to the Drop-In Center to find food, to starting to trust the love of the staff, to moving into a home, to becoming a child of God paints such a vivid picture of why The Forsaken Children exists. The street children of Ethiopia are unreached, unable to understand the love of God the Father, often due to their own disconnect from their own father and family. Leading such children to Christ often requires reconnecting them with what their hears long for, the unconditional love of parents. Given this love, children, like Yohannes are coming into a true and intimate relationship with our almighty God.
Yohannes will be reintegrated into his family in Southwest Ethiopia on August 4, 2010 – NEXT WEEK! We are thrilled that Yohannes’s parents became believers since Yohannes’s disappearance from home. Both Yohannes and his parents are excited to be reunited.
Posted by Joe
5 comments:
what a blessing. and a great ministry. love hearing your stories.
So awesome! It's almost impossible for me to comprehend growing up like that. But what a mighty God we serve--he transforms even the bleakest of situations.
I love the pic of Yohannis in the yellow shirt!!!
Thanks for not forgetting & continuing to advocate for the Onesimus kids!!
That was so beautiful. Thanks for sharing. Its so cool to think he will be rejoined with his fam in a few hours. What pure joy!
Praise the Lord! What an amazing story he has to share [and I REALLY like his name, too :)].
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